"Why?"
"Why! Because will not the fact that I held a position which belonged to him, and was the heir to all his money--of which I never thought till this moment--give the world cause for suspecting----?"
"What?"
"That I am his murderer."
"Nonsense! I suppose you could prove where you were at the time of his death?"
"No, I could not. I entered the hotel at two, but there was not a creature in the house awake. I could hear the porter's snores on the floor above, and there is not a living soul to prove whether I was in at three or not."
"Nor whether you were out! If they were all asleep, what evidence could they give on either side?"
"Even though there should be no evidence, how could I go through life with the knowledge that every one regarded me as his unproved murderer?"
"You look at the matter too seriously. To begin with, after that letter he wrote you, he would very likely destroy all proofs of his identity----"
"He had no chance. He was murdered, in all probability--indeed must have been--a quarter of an hour after he posted it in Pall Mall."